Ever since she let it be known that she wanted to be the next senator from the Great State of New York, the biggest question on pundit lips has been ‘Is Caroline Kennedy qualified to be Senator?’

Come on, really?

She even got the dreaded Palin Comparison when in the early stages of all of this, a handler “whisked her away” after a reporter asked why she though she was qualified.

Honestly, how qualified do you really have to be to be a senator? Their job is to talk to each other and try to find compromise.

How about, “I’m older than 30, have been a citizen for more than nine years and I live in the state I am looking to represent. Which, coincidentally, puts me ahead of the person I am looking to replace…”

Fuck, we elect athletes and actors to the senate. The whole point of our system is that anyone can do it.

And let’s not forget that Kennedy would be taking over for someone who also had absolutely no qualifications other than her last name and wasn’t even from the state, but went on to do a pretty good job as senator. Read more of this post

It’s not that we don’t like her – I voted for her in 2000 – or that we did not think she was qualified for the job, it’s that (as we repeatedly stated) she did not represent the type of change the country needs at this time and because of the polarizing nature of her personality, name and history, we believed that even if she could eke out a victory (I still maintain she would have lost), it would be of the 50+1 variety, resulting in the same partisan gridlock we have seen for decades in Washington.

Plus, the country would have continued the same, stupid tye-dye era fights we’ve been waging since the Vietnam era, despite the fact that all that happened 40 years ago.

Even today, we see the attempts at this with the McCampaign’s continued focus on Bill Ayers and his doings back when Obama was 8.

That being said, as we have stated before, Hillary is absolutely needed in the Senate, where her wonkish ways, attention to policy detail and brutal political gamesmanship would come in very handy. We need her in there on Capitol Hill making the legislative sausage. And here’s hoping she becomes a Lion of the Senate in the Teddy Kennedy mold.

According to Charley James, writing in LA Progressive, interviews of Alaska residents have dished up a series of allegations related to racism in Alaska, as well as allegations that Governor Palin isn’t shy about expressing contempt and mockery of people who don’t happen to be white.

What we are likely to see steadfastly denied in this week’s news cycle is this:

“So Sambo beat the bitch!”

This is how Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin described Barack Obama’s win over Hillary Clinton to political colleagues in a restaurant a few days after Obama locked up the Democratic Party presidential nomination.

According to Lucille, the waitress serving her table at the time and who asked that her last name not be used, Gov. Palin was eating lunch with five or six people when the subject of the Democrat’s primary battle came up. The governor, seemingly not caring that people at nearby tables would likely hear her, uttered the slur and then laughed loudly as her meal mates joined in appreciatively.

Yesterday was an amazing day in the history of the United States of America. Yesterday we witnessed something that was almost beyond words, a stirring, amazing scene that reminds us of the possibilities and hope of this country; Something that defies history and flies in the face of common wisdom; Something momentous and generation defining; Something many of us never thought we’d see in our lifetime.

Yeah, the Democrats nominated a black guy as their candidate, but that doesn’t surprise me one bit, as it has been the only rational option for more than a year now.

What I am talking about is the even more amazing, more groundbreaking, more alert-the-media surprise moment of history: Bubba passed the torch. And sounded like he meant it.

But the night belonged to Bubba. The former president and Democratic Top Dog took the stage to Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop,” (his campaign theme that not only carried him to the White House, but convinced the band to get back together) garnered a hero’s welcome that had him asking the jubilant and adoring crowd to settle so they wouldn’t take all his time and then delivered the kind of talk that made his name: a brilliant, soaring bit of oratory that not only framed the entire election, but answered almost every question the Clintons raised but Hillary failed to answer the night before.

Last night at the Democratic National Convention in Denver (you know, the one where the Dems are going to nominate Barack Obama as the first African American to ever top a major party ticket) Hillary Clinton was given a hero’s welcome unlike anything I have ever seen for a vanquished contender.

And while there were thoughts that Hillary might pull a Reagan and upstage the candidate (valid thoughts, given the whole placing her name into nomination and the fact that about 20 percent of her supporters still won’t support the candidate), Clinton gave a rousing speech that while lackluster in its support, contained all the right words about party unity.

From the very beginning of her speech, Hillary made it clear that she supports Barack Obama (though again today, she made it very clear to her delegates that she won’t advocate that they cast their votes for him) and her support is nice, but after that, the speech became an almost perfect Clintonian metaphor.

The speech was everything we’d expect in a Clinton speech: it was rousing, it was personal, it was emotional and it revved up the crowd. It really was a great speech that showed why she is a Top Dog in the party and why she deserved a primetime spot.

But the speech was also all about Hillary and her accomplishments, with an afterthought of support for her one-time opponent.